The Miracles of Ordinary Men (13 page)

Another pause, this one heavy, disagreeable. “I will let him know,” Emmanuel says finally. He hangs up without saying goodbye.

“‘Like some hooker?'” Debbie's hands are poised over her keyboard, her eyebrows arched, amused. “I bet that's going to get you brownie points.”

“I don't care.” She does not want brownie points. She wants him angry, she wants the righteous slap of his upturned hand. “If he thinks I'm going to answer to his beck and call — fucking men.”

Debbie laughs. “It's just a date, Lilah. You're so wound up.”

“I'm not,” she protests. But Debbie just smirks and turns back to her desk.

Lilah leaves the office at four, goes home and soaks in her tub for an hour. She climbs out with wrinkled fingers, towels off, then pads naked into her bedroom and picks her outfit for the night. Red dress, neckline low, no jewellery. She wears hardly any make-up, and twists her hair so you can't see the early bits of grey. Then she slides the black shawl out of her closet and hooks the black peep-toes onto her feet. Not quite glam but not quite office. Her bruises faint but there. Waiting.

She takes the bus downtown and walks the rest of the way to Israel's apartment, careful in her heels. She is exactly on time. She stands outside of the building for a moment, looking in. The lobby is sleek on the opposite side of the glass. She raises a hand and presses the buzzer. She will not run away.

“Delilah.” His voice over the intercom is cracked, knotted with power. “Come up.”

This time, she rides the elevator alone. There is no music — this feels strange until she remembers that there was no music before, either. Just a steel and glass box rising silently into the night. She focuses on the marbled floor and thinks of Emmanuel, Israel, breathes in deeply. Brownie points. The elevator slows and stops. She raises her head, and the elevator doors slide open.

“Hello,” Israel says. He stands before the elevator, waiting for her. He's wearing an apron, black pants, one oven mitt. If this was any other man he'd look ridiculous. But this is not Joe-with-an-L. This is not any other man.

“Hello.” She holds her breath and waits for more, but there's nothing, so she steps over the threshold. Israel smells of cedar and incense, like the apartment. Heavy, waiting. He slips Lilah's coat from her shoulders, slings it casually over his arm. “You must remove your shoes,” he says. “Please make yourself at home.”

Lilah slips off her heels and sinks her feet into the carpet. Plush. Even the floor here is expensive. The apartment is lush and calm, a soothing mix of beige walls and recessed lighting. She hardly notices the doilies now. The front foyer opens into a great room that looks out over the city. City lights twinkle at them through the glass.

“I've made tortellini,” Israel says. “Stuffed with pork and rosemary — I trust you don't object?”

“No, it's fine,” she says, and she follows him into the kitchen.

Israel pauses at the counter and passes her a glass of wine. Red, this time
.
“Good.”

Lilah perches on a bar stool and watches him move through the stainless steel expanse of the room. This hulking, beautiful man in a kitchen apron and oven mitts. Saxophone music drifts from the stereo by the window.

“Emmanuel called me,” she says suddenly. “I told him I didn't want to be picked up.”

He smiles. “I know what you said.”

“Are you . . . upset?”

Israel shrugs, then turns from her and fiddles with the oven knobs. “You are here. If you would like to be stubborn and walk instead of being driven, who am I to argue?”

“I didn't walk the
whole way
,” as though it matters. “I took the bus.”

“Oh.” His voice is smooth. “Excuse me.” Then he nods in the direction of the music. “John Coltrane. An American saxophonist.”

“I know who he is.”

“Do you,” he says. “That is interesting. In my experience, most women do not.”

“In your experience, do most women also crochet?”

He chuckles and slides a casserole dish out of the oven. “Every woman should know how to make beautiful things for her family.”

She doesn't know what to make of this, so she says nothing. The wine is heavy, delicious.

“You should tell me more about your family, Delilah.” He takes two plates out of the cupboard and slides them onto the counter. “I am very interested. You can tell me now, while we eat.”

“You didn't tell me anything about
your
family,” she counters. A childhood in Mexico, a struggle with math that mirrored her own. “Anything important. You first.”

He laughs. “Very well. I am an only child, and my mother is dead.” He spoons the tortellini out as he speaks, the movement of his wrist quick and sure. When he finishes, he reaches for the bundle of parsley sitting on the counter, then tears two sprigs and places one on each dish. “My father . . . became irrelevant years ago. I am alone in the world. Is that what you want to hear?”

“You don't have to be so blunt,” she mutters. “Jesus. I thought you said you knew how to tell a story.”

His expression flickers, unreadable. “I said I had many stories to tell. That is different.” He slides a plate in front of her and sits on the opposite bar stool, then takes the cream napkin that sits next to his plate and unfolds it over his lap. “You asked me a question, and I answered it. Would you prefer a fairy tale?”

A fairy tale, a happy ending. She unfolds her napkin and spreads it carefully across her knees. “So you haven't seen your father,” she says. She picks up her fork and then puts it down again. “In years.”

He shrugs. “It is not a problem. He is dead in every way that matters.” He nods to her plate. “You can eat. I won't poison you.”

Lilah frowns and scoops a forkful of pasta into her mouth too fast; she coughs and narrowly avoids spitting everything back out onto her plate. Israel smiles. She avoids his eyes. She pretends to concentrate on the food and says nothing.

“Your father is also gone,” Israel says idly. “You haven't seen him in years, either.”

She stops eating and stares at him. “Who the hell told you that?”

He laughs. “Surely you don't think you hide it all that well, Delilah. You have — how would you say it? Daddy issues.”

“I do not fucking have daddy issues.”

“But your father is gone, yes?”

Lilah puts her fork down. “Why the fuck is it important?”

“People show who they are when they are upset,” he says. So calm. “I am trying to know who you are.”

“Why can't we just talk about hobbies, or favourite books, like normal people?”

“Normal people are mediocre,” he says. “Is that what you want? Is that truly who you want to be?”

The door is just on the other side of the foyer. All she has to do is take her shoes and go. “Don't tell me what I want. You have no idea.”

“Hmm,” he says. He winds a hand around the stem of his wine glass and stares at her. “That could be true.” Then he reaches forward with his other hand and strokes the skin on the back of her wrist. “But I think — I think I am not wholly wrong.”

She looks away and mutters her words in the direction of the floor. “My father left fourteen years ago. I don't care if I ever see him again.”

“I see.”

“Why is it so important?” she says, her eyes still lowered. “Why do you want to know?”

“Ah,” he says. “As to that — how can I know who you are if I don't also know what your family think of you? If I don't know where you come from? I do not have a family, Delilah, so families interest me. It is that simple.”

Lilah shakes her head. “We're not that interesting.”

“You think so? And yet your brother lies trembling on the streets, changing even as you watch. Disintegrating, disappearing, despite all your efforts to save him. And you love him? You'd forgive this sad, ungrateful wretch?”

She snatches her hand away. “Fuck you. You don't know anything about my brother.”

“You'd be surprised what one can learn.” He reaches for her hand again, and this time he does not let her go. “Suppose he disappears, Delilah. Suppose there is no more Timothy. What would you do?”

“Shut up. Just shut up. He's not going to disappear.”

“But what if he does?” His voice pleasant, relentless. “You'd need something else to live for, no? Perhaps your mother, who is also dying? Tell me, Delilah — what happens if she goes too? If you have nothing? Would you not want something else?”

“They're not going anywhere,” she says. She cannot move her hand. “Stop it. They're not gone.”

“Haven't you wished, sometimes, on some level, that they
would
disappear?” He tightens his grip more. “Tell me, Delilah — in your heart of hearts, do you not secretly imagine what life would be if they were not here?”

Tears spill from her eyes. “Why can't you just leave it alone?”

Israel releases her hand. “You've left it alone for too long,” he says. “All this guilt you carry — perhaps your brother just deserves to die.”

She throws her fork at him without thinking. He ducks it easily — the fork hits the kitchen cabinet and clatters to the floor. “Goddamn you.” Her voice cracks with tears and rage. “God
damn
you, you fucking son of a cunt.”

“What did you say?” His voice is low.

How she hates him, suddenly, this man who loves his mother. “I said,
you fucking son of a no-good cunt.
I bet she was nothing more than a whore.”

He hits her so fast it doesn't register. The force sends her reeling, knocks the wine glass off the counter so that it shatters on the floor. He hits her again, and her head crashes against the wall. She stumbles from the bar stool, no doily there to save her.

“Jesus fuck,” she gasps. She should run to the door, call for help. Something.

“You have a filthy mouth,” he says. He is already standing over her. He rolls the sleeves of his shirt slowly, deliberately, and extends a hand to her. Lilah takes it without thinking. He pulls her back from the wall and then smacks her again. Blue-white stars explode behind her eyes. And suddenly she is humming, glowing, alive with energy. She blinks, breathes hard.

“I have so much to teach you, Delilah,” he says. “I have so much to
give
you. But you're not listening. How long before you pay attention? How long before you learn?”

She lets him strip her, right there in the kitchen. He leads her into the bedroom and uses the black shawl to bind her hands to the bed. Then he pulls the sheets away — these beautiful sheets, the duvet that probably cost more than she makes in a month.

“I will teach you,” Israel says. “I will set you free.” He opens the bedside cabinet and brings out a delicate whip. Even the brush of the whip along her thigh makes Lilah shiver.

“Do it,” and she clenches her teeth, arches her back, waits for the pain and that breath of infinity along her ribs. Small Timothy. Sweet Timothy. The brother, yes, she has wished away a hundred times.

Israel holds the whip above her, his hands ready. But he tosses it aside and kneels before her, and he traces her face in the dark, his thumbs warm against her wet cheeks, her salty eyes. Over and over, until his fingers are damp and her face feels as raw as if he'd taken the whip to it after all. Then he stretches a band of cloth across her eyes, and ties it gently behind her head.

She clenches her hands as he draws away, and readies herself. She hears him remove his clothes, feels him stretch out beside her. He places his arm across her breasts and says nothing. She is blind and bound, waiting. Maybe he'll whip her now. Maybe he'll make her scream.

Minutes pass, maybe hours, as they lie there in the dark.

—

Finally. “I don't want him to disappear.” She aches under the weight of his arm and listens to him breathe. The fury has passed through her like a migraine and left her giddy, yet strangely calm. “I get frustrated. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if he wasn't here. Yes. But I don't know what I would be without him.”

“You would find out,” he says. “Eventually.”

“I don't
want
to know what I would be without him.”

“No one wants
to know,” he says. “But who knows, Delilah, what gifts might lie in wait beyond that sadness?”

“Of course. I forgot. ‘Perhaps God has other plans.'”

His shrug is soft beside her. “You are quick to blame God,” he says. “I find it amusing.”

“My mother always said that Timothy would lead us to God,” she says. What is it about this man that draws the words from her? Her throat feels oddly raw. She swallows; the feeling does not go away. “She thought he was destined for . . . something. And she expected that that would change . . . everything.”

“What do you think?”

“Some destiny,” she says, bitterly. So much freedom in the darkness of that cloth across her eyes. “He might as well be locked away.”

“But you follow him anyway,” he says. “You follow, and you hope.” Suddenly he reaches across and takes away the blindfold — the room is so dark that for a moment she can't tell the difference.

“Follow who? Timothy? Or God?”

“Does it matter?” He rests his hand against her cheek; with his other hand he reaches up and pulls her wrist free from the shawl.

She doesn't wait for the blood to rush back into her hand — she slaps him, twists her wrist so that her nails catch at the corner of his mouth. Israel grunts. Her arm is a live wire, her own blood pulsing back into her fingers. The pain is brilliant, excruciating.

Israel swings a leg across her torso and frees her other arm. He places a hand on either side of her ribcage. As her eyes adjust to the light, she watches the energy flow through her arm and explode against his face — fireworks, a supernova that settles into the air around his head. Dark man with a halo of blue-white stars. She is pinned against the bed; she's never felt more powerful in her life.